Data Privacy

Thank you for your interest in my internet website.

I place great value on the protection of your data and privacy. Here I inform you, the user, about the kinds of data, the extent and purpose of the data collection and the usage of personal data on this website by myself, the data controller.
With regard to the terminology used, e.g. „controller“ or „processor“, please refer to the definitions in Article 4 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Data Controller, Data Protection Officer

Responsible authority according to the Data Protection Laws, in particular the EU-General Data Protection Regulation, (GDPR) is:

Anna V. Reeves
Kurt-Schumacher Str. 10b
76187 Karlsruhe
Germany

E-Mail:

I do not have an appointed representative or data protection officer.

1. Data protection

Legal basis

My privacy and data protection policy is based on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union. For German citizens and authorities it is extended by the new version of the Bundesdatenschutzgesetzes (BDSG). Both laws came into force on the 25. May 2018.

Which data is protected?

Article 4 GDPR and § 46 BDSG both define data to be protected as: any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person. This also includes IP addresses and content data such as comments on blog articles.

Your rights as data subject

By way of the above contact data you may exercise the following rights at any time:

  • Right to access:You may request, in accordance with Article 15 GDPR, disclosure of whether I have stored or process any data concerning your person. You have the right to receive copies of the data, and of any further pertinent information thereabaout.
  • Right to correction: In accordance with Article 16 GDPR you have the right to demand the completion of incomplete data concerning yourself, and / or the correction of any incorrect data about yourself.
  • Right to erasure: In accordance with Article 17 GDPR you can require that data about yourself is deleted without undue delay. Legal restrictions may however take precedence.
  • Right to restriction of data processing: according to Article 18 GDPR, inasmuch as the data concerned cannot be erased due to a legal restriction.
  • Right to objection: to the processing of your available data in accordance with Article 21 GDPR.
  • Right to revocation: You may revoke a given approval in accordance with Article 7 Section 3 GDPR with effect for the future.
  • Right to data portability: If you have agreed to the data processing or have entered into a contract with me, you may demand to receive the data concerning you that you have provided me with, in accordance with Article 20 GDPR, and to demand the transmission to another responsible party.
  • Right to complaint: You may approach the responsible authority with a complaint in accordance with Article 77 GDPR at any time. Your responsible authority varies according to your residence, workplace or the suspected infringement.

2. Personal data gathered by this website

Voluntary input by way of this website

Establishment of contact

Our exchange of emails contains personal data. This data will be used and recorded solely for the purpose of dealing with your concern or for the establishment of contact and the related technical administration. The legal basis for my processing of your data is my legitimate interest in dealing with your concern in accordance with Article 6 Section 1 Clause f GDPR. If the conclusion of a contract is at issue, a further legal basis for processing is Article 6 Section 1 Clause b GDPR. The data provided by you remains with me until you request its deletion, revoke your consent to the recording of the data, or the need for the data recording lapses. Mandatory legal provisions – especially retention periods – retain precedence.

Duration of data storage

The criteria for the duration of data storage differ for the various types of data. Please refer to the relevant sections and the paragraph „business-related processing“ below.

Tracking

Tracking in this context means recording activities of a specific user, e.g. how a user navigates through a website, what she/he downloads or buys, and when she/he revisits the website. When large, centralised services such as Google Analytics are used for this purpose, the possibility for the service provider to track a particular persons activities across many websites arises.

I find this kind of tracking excessive and disrespectful – although it legally counts as a „legitimate interest“ of the website provider in accordance with the GDPR.

This website does not use tracking software.

Webserver Logs

To repel so called hacker attacks and to respond to fraudulent access, the software which answers website data requests („webserver“) logs its actions in protocol files („log files“). This infrastructure is a part of web hosting, located at a deeper level than the website itself. The storing of data in these files occurs in accordance with Article 6 Section 1 clause f. GDPR, based on my legitimate interest concerning the reliable functioning of the website.

The log files contain the following information for every access:

  • Your IP-address (see below)
  • Date and time of the access
  • The web address of the visited page (“URL”)
  • The type of the webservers response (“HTTP status code”)
  • The amount of data sent in bytes
  • The web address visited immediately previously (“Referer”)*
  • The browser and the client operating system used (“User Agent”)*

*Provided you have not suppressed these values via browser settings or browser plugin.

This website is hosted on a self-managed server, which uses a software package „fail2ban“ to protect the server against attacks. To do so, fail2ban requires the complete IP-addresses of requests in the webserver logs. As fail2ban only processes recent log entries, the log files of the previous day are deleted daily after midnight, since their purpose has then lapsed. No further analysis of the protocol data occurs.

Providing your personal data to others

I do not pass on any personal data to third parties for processing, nor for any other reason. Accordingly no transfer of personal data to third countries occurs.

External contract data processor

I (see above), as data controller for this website, am allowed to commission the processing of your personal data by third parties on my behalf, and subject to requirements. This is regulated in Article 28 GDPR, which terms such a third party the “processor”.

There can be no data processor for my website, since no personal data is located thereon.

Business related data processing

In the normal course of administering my business, much more personally identifiable information (PII) accumulates than through the use of this website. Here are some examples: Contracts, billing, bookkeeping, and in notes, documents and emails. The storage duration of PII is regulated primarily by any applicable laws, such as commercial and tax laws. After the mandated period has expired, I routinely delete that data – provided that it is no longer required to fulfill or solicit for a contract, and/or I have no further legitimate interest to retain it.

According to German law, I must retain all bookkeeping data for 10 years. After they have expired, I destroy them. If you cannot agree to this, then I am legally not able to work for you.

Your personal data cannot be accessed by third parties, as I have implemented technical and organisational safeguards to prevent this. Nor will they be provided to any third parties, except in case of legal neccessity.

3. Further topics

Cookies

A cookie is a small package of data originating from a website, which your browser deposits on your computer on behalf of that website. Every time your browser requests a particular web page, it sends any cookies (name and content), which originated from that pages website, along with the request. Cookies may contain many sorts of information, e.g. choice of viewing language, shopping cart contents, or a requirement not to be tracked. A cookie may be valid only until the browser is closed, or for a specifiable period of time (e.g. 3 months, 1 year). Cookies which are to be deleted when the browser is closed, effectively temporary information, are termed „Session-Cookies“. Cookies set by the website of a page being viewed are called first-party cookies. The most problematical types of cookie from the viewpoint of data privacy are, however, so called third-party cookies. These are not set by the website visited, but by another website which the page visited has called in the background. The most widely known example of this is Google Analytics, but there are many others.

This website does not use any cookies.

Encryption of the data exchanged between browser and webserver

For security and privacy, this website forces all data exchanged between the webserver and your browser to be encrypted. This is particularly relevant where you enter personal data, e.g. the contact form. The technique used is known as TLS, which stands for Transport Layer Security; earlier versions of the encryption protocoll were known as SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). You can recognise an encrypted connection by the lock symbol at the left end of the browser address bar, and the web address starting with „https://“. The encryption ensures that any data you enter to the website cannot be read and decoded by others.

Privacy policy changes

I may update my privacy policy from time to time, to (a) ensure that it matches new legal requirements, and (b) to cover changes made to the technologies used by the website. For future visits the only valid version of the privacy policy is the one online at that time.